In many medical procedures, medical personnel wish to monitor various physiological conditions that are present within a body cavity of a patient. These physiological conditions are typically physical in nature, such as, for example, pressure and temperature, and provide the physician or medical technician with information as to the status of a patient's condition. The manner by which these types of parameters are measured and monitored should be as safe, as accurate and as reliable as possible.
Equipment and processes have been developed for assisting medical personnel, such as physicians or medical technicians, in diagnosing physiological conditions of a patient. For example, sensor guide wires in which a sensor is mounted at the distal end of a guide wire have been developed. The sensor may, for example, be an intravascular pressure sensor that is arranged to measure blood pressure at various points within the vasculature to facilitate locating and determining the severity of, for example, stenosis or other disrupters of blood flow within the vessels of the living body.